Typically there is a desire to reduce size of electronic units, while lowering associated assembly costs and improving overall ruggedness. In particular, many electronic units such as hand hold mobile terminals, communication units, and the like have various assembly costs and are generally susceptible to damage during employment in harsh environments. Such units are generally assembled by enclosing internal electrical components, such as a central processing unit (CPU) board, display, keyboard, and internal wiring, within a housing made of plastic or another structural material. The enclosure normally serves as a protective measure and is typically formed in two parts having an upper housing and a lower housing. The electronic components can be mounted to one or both sides of the housing. Many such electronic units employ antennas structures, flexural connection units and other mechanical and electrical components as part of their operative assembly.
Antenna structures for such units have typically manifested themselves as protuberances and often as extendable metallic projections out of the electronic equipment which they service. Such components, while essential for transmitting and receiving electromagnetic propagable electromagnetic waves, have generally been both cumbersome and aesthetically undesirable. At the same time, they are typically susceptible to damage when the associated unit is being employed in harsh environments.
Because there are various types of communication systems, such as GSM, DCS, PCS, DAMPS and others, it increasingly likely to have different types of systems serving a common area. These systems generally operate at various frequency ranges, e.g., GSM typically operates at 890-960 MHz and DCS typically operates at 1710-1880 MHz. As such, it is becoming desirable to introduce any of a number of functions such as, data link, wireless units, and the like to a communication unit. Thus, antenna configuration and design also plays an important role in feasibility of application for a unit.
While it is essential for effective antenna configurations to assume a dimension proportional to the wavelength of the carrier signal, little progress has taken place in attending to minimization of space occupied by antenna structures and other electronic or mechanical equipments, while simultaneously increasing the overall ruggedness and decreasing assembly costs for the associated electronic unit. Some electronic designers have resorted to merely placing the antenna in a space encapsulated by the housing. For example, one approach for reducing the obvious nature of antenna structures has been to fabricate the radiating elements of antenna structures onto printed circuit boards and “snap” the printed circuit boards into the electronic device, which is encased by the housing. However, such an arrangement is typically susceptible to damage during operation in harsh environments. For instance, an accidental drop of the unit can relocate the antenna from its static position and affect performance of the unit. Moreover, in some applications the snap latch features generally required for such assemblies can pose problems. For example, the snap retention features may require space, and for a unit having closely spaced terminals, the retention geometry can become a problem. The snap retention features can also leave open passages between the front and back of an associated connector. These open passages may be required to become sealed for certain applications, thus increasing associated costs. Accordingly, while such “integration” results in less obtrusive antenna-laden equipment, such advances have not generally attempted to address the manufacturing and structural needs for an ever increasing trend toward integration and miniaturization of electronics.
Meanwhile, progress in spectrum allocations of higher frequency ranges, permits antenna structures to derive benefit from the reduced wavelength of such high frequency signals. In other words, as electronic devices employ higher frequency spectrums, the associated wavelength that dictates the effective length of antenna structures, decreases, which in turn can lead to smaller form-factors for devices employing such antenna structures. This generally enables various communication units to assume desirable integrated and miniaturized configurations.
Similar desire for integration exists for other components associated with an electronic device and its protective plastic housing. Typically, assembly of the components into the housing may require several manufacturing processes. Before the housing is fastened together, the CPU board, the display and other components must be assembled to a subframe, to the housing, or to some other subassembly. Such assembly steps are generally time consuming and expensive in manufacturing. Moreover, in some units the housing enclosure is further attached to a circuit board via connecting members such as flex units. These flex units, as separate components from the housing, are typically thin films of conductors and plastic with curved regions employed for interconnect procedures. Because of constant and on going contact with these flex units during assembly operations, the flex units are generally broken during fabrication and are thus susceptible to breakage. This susceptibility to damage and the associated secondary assembly costs also remains a problem area for other components such as subframes, various electronic circuit boards, display units, interface components, connection terminals, keypads and the like, which are assembled as part of the electronic unit and encased by the plastic housing.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the aforementioned deficiencies associated with conventional devices.